Mortgage Broker Sentenced to Over Three Years for Fraud

A mortgage broker who schemed with his father to defraud a mortgage lender was sentenced October 12, 2011, to more than three years in federal prison.

Justin Michael Ray, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received the prison term after April 26, 2011, guilty plea to one count of bank fraud and one count of engaging in a monetary transaction using funds from a specified unlawful activity.

In a plea agreement, Ray admitted he paid his father to apply for a loan and purchase Ray’s home in Robins, Iowa, for $711,500. Ray knew his father did not have the means to pay the mortgage for the home, his father would have to provide false information to obtain the loan, and his father did not intend to live in the home. Ray used the proceeds from the fraudulent sale of his home to pay his father by writing a check to a third party, to conceal the source of the money.

Ray was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade. Ray was sentenced to 37 months’ imprisonment. A special assessment of $200 was imposed, and he was ordered to make $203,097.86 in restitution to the mortgage lender he defrauded. He must also serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

Ray is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger and investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 11-69-LRR.